Rael Bricker, The Excellence Guy, promotes the idea of being excellent – showing up as the best version of yourself (or your company) every day.

“In 2013 I was given a rude awakening when after a season of triathlons, I decided to run a marathon. All this was part of a plan before turning 50. Each time I ran, I experienced neck pain and it was discovered that I had two blocked arteries.

I was the lucky one as I managed to dodge a bullet and ended up with two stents. Today I am probably back to close to my fitness and strength from 2013, but much more self aware of listening to my body

This experience helped me to find my purpose in life. I found my purpose in sharing the experiences of journeying and achieving excellence with business owners and entrepreneurs around the world

After 30+ years as a serial entrepreneur, in everything from education to finance to fitness, I’ve now made it my mission to share my knowledge and expertise with others. Seeing that light come on, and connections being made in people’s heads as to how they can weave my experiences and advice into their businesses reinforces that this is where I need to be.”

From being 6000ft underground in a gold mine, to starting an education business (that grew to have 4000 plus students) to spending years working in venture capital, Rael Bricker has seen it all. He has listed companies on multiple international stock exchanges, and his financial services group has settled more than $3bn in loans over 21 years. Rael has the unique distinction of having sold more than $1bn in mortgages from stage. Rael’s diverse work history combined with unique global research interviews with companies in more than 25 countries allows him to work with leaders and managers on growing and achieving excellence, as he has experienced the rollercoaster himself and knows how to navigate the twists, turns and loops.

Interesting Moments

1. A Rockstar’s Journey To Health And Gratitude – Timestamp: 00:00

2. Working In A Gold Mine: Challenges And Historical Context – Timestamp: 04:42

3. The Importance Of Self-awareness In Business – Timestamp: 09:01

4. The Importance Of Empowerment In Business – Timestamp: 15:58

5. The Value Of Life Experiences In Helping Others – Timestamp: 21:28

6. Continuous Writing For Entrepreneurs – Timestamp: 22:14

7. Managing Time and Ideas – Timestamp: 18:43

8. The Benefits Of Continuous Writing For Entrepreneurs – Timestamp: 22:57

9. Responding to Emails and Social Media – Timestamp: 24:09

10. Constant Ideation And Sleepless Nights – Timestamp: 17:43

Find Rael Online

http://raelbricker.com/freebook/ (free book giveaway)

https://www.linkedin.com/in/rael-bricker

https://www.facebook.com/rael.bricker

http://www.raelbricker.com/

https://www.instagram.com/raelbricker

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Transcript (Provided by CastMagic.io)

Seth [00:00:00]:

Entrepreneurs Enigma is a podcast for the ups and downs of entrepreneurship. The wins and the fails that we all face being entrepreneurs. How we learn from adversity. Every week I talk to a different entrepreneur with a story to tell. I’m Seth Goldstein. Come with me on the journey. This is Entrepreneurs Enigma. Let’s get started. Hey, everybody. Welcome to another edition of the Entrepreneurs Enigma podcast. I am, as always, your host with the mostest Seth. Today I have rail bricker the excellence guy. Rail has more than three decades, I repeat, three decades of entrepreneur experience. He’s been around the block quite a bit. He’s done everything from being 6000ft Underground in a gold mine to starting education business that grew up to 4000 plus students. He worked in venture capital. He’s done it all. He also is a triathlete. And he had a scare when he was a triathlete, which kind of brought everything to focus. He had two block arteries. Luckily, it did not turn to a heart attack. Got two stents ten years ago today almost. And he’s turned his life around. As I got to eat better, I’ve got to rock and roll, I want to give back. So real. Welcome to the show.

Rael [00:01:25]:

Hey, thank you. Great to be here. Or from your future. I can tell you what’s going to happen exactly.

Seth [00:01:31]:

It’s 09:00 A.m. In Philly and it’s 09:00 P.m. In Perth.

Rael [00:01:35]:

Yeah, our time change 12 hours.

Seth [00:01:38]:

So he’s still awake. He’s ready to wrap up. I’m ready to get started. Dereal, how is it going, buddy? Going good?

Rael [00:01:45]:

It’s fantastic. Unfortunately, it’s the middle of winter here, which is a balmy 60 degrees, probably in US terms.

Seth [00:02:02]:

Southern hemisphere. It’s winter and it’s still in the Southern hemisphere in Australia. 60 degrees in winter seems like a.

Rael [00:02:08]:

Dream to me because winter, we don’t see snow here.

Seth [00:02:13]:

Do you see anywhere in Australia?

Rael [00:02:15]:

Even in the outbound between Canberra and Melbourne, about this time of year, you get a little bit of snow. But having skied a lot of US resorts, it’s not worth going to ski in Australia.

Seth [00:02:31]:

It’s like Jersey. It’s skiing in New Jersey, which is right now. Molehills.

Rael [00:02:36]:

Yeah. Molehills. Yeah, basically.

Seth [00:02:38]:

That’s funny. So, Rail, let’s talk about this 6000ft Underground in a gold mine. I read your bio you sent over. I’m like, what’s that about?

Rael [00:02:48]:

My first degree was in engineering and my parents couldn’t afford to send me to university. And so I needed someone to pay for me. And I got a scholarship from Anglo American, which was the largest mining house in South Africa at the time. And part of the scholarship was that I had to work for them for two years. So I spent every summer holidays working there, which was really cool because when everyone else was getting the equivalent of $8 an hour, I was on a junior engineer salary for my summer holidays. So we earned quite well over our holidays and then I ended up working for them for just under two years before I left them to go to business school. That’s wild.

Seth [00:03:29]:

And so you actually went 6000ft underground. What was that like?

Rael [00:03:34]:

You know, it’s interesting now, 35 years later, 40 years later, I’m actually appreciating the lessons I learned then. I didn’t appreciate them at the time. It’s interesting. It’s 35 degrees Celsius Celsius, so 100 or 95 degrees Fahrenheit underground rock temperature. So it’s hot. It’s hot. You work in a gold mine. The gold only comes in a very thin seam, about 3 CM in that particular mine. So you’re going 6000 foot down to look for a three centimeter high seam, and then you dragging percent of waste rock out of the mine because only 10% of it actually controls gold. It’s just experience. It was a weird time in South Africa. White privilege. Before the dropping of apartheid, the only engineers were white males.

Seth [00:04:29]:

Oh, wow, that’s wild.

Rael [00:04:33]:

It was a weird time. Got to understand a lot more about black culture. South African black culture built up relationships with a lot of the team members. So those are the lessons I take into my business today.

Seth [00:04:48]:

Absolutely.

Rael [00:04:49]:

It took me a few years after being there to appreciate them and internalize them. I think that’s a challenge in life.

Seth [00:04:57]:

It’s taking the moment to look back, take a breath, take a beat, look back and appreciate what you’ve been through. Because a lot of these for adverse events and stuff like that, you realize that sometimes they happen for a reason. We talked briefly about how you’re on a triathlon and you felt pain in your neck. Luckily that was not a heart attack, but that kind of turned things around for you, too.

Rael [00:05:20]:

And yet your ego gets in the way a lot. And so when I was doing triathlons and I was training for a marathon, I’d get to about 12 running and my neck would get sore and I would stop and I would stretch a little bit and I’d say, oh, I’m just a big unit, I’m fairly chunky, yeah. And I’d say, oh, nothing, it’s just my bad running style. And I’d carry on running and another couple of kilometers and my neck would get sore again and I’d stretch it out. And really what I was doing is I was stopping and so my heart rate was coming down and therefore the pain was going away. But I didn’t realize that. My mother in law looked at me one day and said, are you gray? You should go and see the doctor.

Seth [00:06:07]:

Also, it wasn’t during the race.

Rael [00:06:09]:

No. Every time I ran. And so I was doing Olympic distance triathlon, which doesn’t get to the twelve kilometer mark, ten k run at the end. And so I got to a point where my mother in law just said, you’re looking gray, go and see the doctor.

Seth [00:06:25]:

And for those who are not seeing the video, you’re tan. So looking gray is kind of a stark contrast.

Rael [00:06:31]:

Yeah. So she just went, yeah, go see a doctor. So I did, and it worked.

Seth [00:06:36]:

Thank God that she caught that. You caught that. You sucked it up. You listened to your mother in law, which is beat in its own right.

Rael [00:06:44]:

Yes. My doctor, my cardiologist, who I’m actually friendly with now, said to me, if I had carried on training, I would have had a heart attack. Quite simple. In my bio, it actually says that I’m much more body aware now and attuned to my body. And I think that’s a male ego thing as well. We think we’re bulletproof, we think we’re indestructible and we’re not. And we attribute things to other things rather than actually saying, Maybe I’m not.

Seth [00:07:13]:

Well, yeah, I had a really good friend who, ironically, on 2016, we’ll leave the event at 2016 alone, but that night he had a widowmaker. He survived, but he had 100% blockage. He was 37 years old and literally fell to the ground, was hit way as a ghost, and luckily they got into the hospital in time, but he had 100% blockage, and literally before that, he was strong as an ox. We would have just thought, oh, I’m going to stretch this out. It’s a little pain, nothing big. Our ego is getting away. It’s incredible. We’re going to take a quick break, hear from our sponsors and get right back to the show.

Rael [00:07:52]:

Yes. I take those lessons into business when I consult to businesses when I do training, it’s about being aware, because sometimes blissfully unaware. And I meet particularly entrepreneurs and you’re talking about the entrepreneurs enigma. I meet a lot of entrepreneurs who are so OCD focused that they can’t see the wood for the trees, basically. I interviewed someone on my podcast recently, and he made a comment in the interview and he said, don’t solve a problem in your own mind. Solve a problem for other people. And I meet lots of entrepreneurs who try and they had a problem doing something and they want to solve the problem, but they haven’t actually realized that no one else had that problem.

Seth [00:08:39]:

Yeah, you kind of have to do the research to see if it’s actually needed.

Rael [00:08:43]:

Our own ego says, oh, because I had that problem, everyone must have the problem. And it’s human nature. It’s that ego that kicks in. Unfortunately, and I know that sounds a bit sexist, but males egos are it’s.

Seth [00:08:57]:

Reverse sexism, in my opinion. Men are generally knuckleheads.

Rael [00:09:02]:

Yeah.

Seth [00:09:05]:

Hunter gatherer mentality. Men were the hunters. Women were traditionally the gatherers. Now it’s changed and it’s all different. It’s fantastic and the way it is now. But generally we’re wired differently from the female sex. We just are it and we’re knuckleheads sometimes and we get stuck in our ways and breaking out of that. But I think a lot of people think, oh, solve a problem for other people. I think it’s brilliant and it’s highlighted that. But also sometimes it’s a good start to find a problem that you’re facing but then go the extra mile and see if anyone else is having that problem too. Because if it’s just you can go on to the Internet and go on Google and find the solution. Because if you’re the only one that has the issue, someone else figured out the answer.

Rael [00:09:48]:

Yeah, absolutely.

Seth [00:09:51]:

What is the best thing about being an entrepreneur?

Rael [00:09:53]:

It’s the freedom, without a doubt. But it’s the freedom to work 18 hours a day. It’s not the freedom to play golf. I enjoy playing golf, and I still play competitive sport in my life at the moment. But what I mean by the freedom it is my children are ranging age from 1819 to 29. Wow. And I got to see them grow up. I got to be there as a very engaged parent. I still spend now four months of the year traveling as a professional speaker. But my kids are older. My kids live all over the world now.

Seth [00:10:31]:

I have a reason also travel now too, because you have to go see each kid, each kid’s all over the world.

Rael [00:10:36]:

Yes. So it’s a lot of fun, but what it’s being and not everyone has that. And unfortunately, there is a myth that everyone can be an entrepreneur. And I don’t believe everyone can because I think there is a level of risk profile that everyone needs. And when you walk out of that corporate job and the salary stops and you’re responsible for it and the first day you employ a staff member, the responsibility that goes with that. But along with the freedom and in fact, the book that I published, I’ll yes. Mention the book through the Magic of Technology. I’ll do that.

Seth [00:11:15]:

Oh, look how fancy he is. Dive in. Lessons learned since business school.

Rael [00:11:21]:

Yeah. When I wrote that book, the original working title was called give Up Control to Gain Control. And it’s one of the chapters in the book. And so a typical entrepreneur wants to control everything. They are not only OCD, but they’re control freaks. And that’s a good thing because I’ve seen people start businesses without they’ve started a business and they’ve gone. I think this is a great business, but I don’t have the expertise. I’ll employ the expertise. And as an entrepreneur, if you’re in a big corporate that works, you employ the expertise. I’m not great at detail. Right. And I run a financial services group that’s done over $3 billion in mortgages. But when I have to look at the new legislation that’s come out around finance brokers, I two big cups of coffee, and I go and sit in my office with the door closed for 3 hours and I can read the law and understand the regulations. Do I enjoy it? No, I hate it. It sounds awful, but I can do it. Yeah, that’s the point. But is it productive use of my time? I guess that particular example, yes, because I need to educate my staff. But do I really need to know the ins and outs? No. And so I’m reading it for context, not content, but using that same example, if you start a business I started my finance broking business, which is a good example. And at some point, about three years in, I employed my first staff member who’s still with me 17 years later.

Seth [00:12:56]:

Wow.

Rael [00:12:57]:

And I employed him to basically be my right hand and actually take the paperwork from me and process it and send it into the banks and manage the process. Yeah. So what did it do for me? It allowed me the freedom to go and do what I’m good at, which is business generation and sales, and allowed him to do what he was good at. And it was a big thing to let go of that control. It’s tough, but it amazingly gave me freedom. And that, to me, that skill set, I think, is the entrepreneurial mindset that you know how to do everything in the business. You may not be able to do it, but you focus on the things you do well, like generally business development or sales. And you employ people to do other things and you empower them. We see that in my work now as a speaker working with companies on excellence where I see lots of companies mess up because they don’t empower their teams. I’m doing a training program for a listed company tomorrow morning, a four hour program on communication. And one of the challenges that the boss has already told me is that the subordinate to the main boss he standard on. So when anyone asks him anything is, no, we don’t have the budget for hi. Okay. So there’s a killer straight away because you’re not empowering your staff. So one of the programs that I’m going to be running shortly that a friend of mine has developed in Singapore, it’s called Small Steps to Big Changes and we’re going to be running it in Australia. But essentially what happens there is you take groups of 20 people in an organization and the bosses empower them to make small changes without going through hoops. Amazing results that they’ve been running in Singapore, one of the big hospitals. They got 4000 people going through this program and productivity has gone up 20% because they’re empowered to do. If I didn’t have to fill in three forms and only filled in two, how much more could I do during the day? And just by making those changes that don’t cost money necessarily, all these small Steps have made amazingly large contributions. So that’s what I think is the entrepreneur. The entrepreneur is the brains. The entrepreneur is the one who sees the opportunities. But the entrepreneur is also the one who actually has to have the maturity to know what they do absolutely.

Seth [00:15:33]:

So on the flip side, what keeps you up at night.

Rael [00:15:37]:

Through COVID, as an example, it was paying salaries. It was I need to make sure that every one of my staff gets paid every month and that the taxes are paid, and that superannuation, which is their pension, is paid every month. That was what kept me up at night, was because COVID affected business. But what keeps you up at night is often ideas. I think that’s part of it is that the ideas brain is just running and running in your staffs and wake up at 04:00 in the morning and go one of my staff said to me the other day, she said, oh, I woke up at 04:00 in the which is in the finance business. She said, I woke up at 04:00 in the morning worrying about a client. I said, welcome to my world. But yeah. So what I do, I wake up in the morning, I think of ideas, and my staff hate it because when I in the morning and I go, I was thinking, they know, they’re going that’s really what it is. It’s just about being in tune with your market, being in tune with what’s around you waking up in the morning and going, yeah, that works for me. That’s an idea. I like that.

Seth [00:16:45]:

On the flip side, that idea, maybe not. Or sideline, that idea.

Rael [00:16:51]:

I’m not a writer. My wife is a writer. Like, she writes things down and I’ve got her to have a notepad next to her bed, which is I tell a lot of people in my programs. And I said, if you wake up at 03:00 in the morning with a thought, good, bad, indifferent, write it down and you’ll go straight back to sleep, because once it’s out of your brain.

Seth [00:17:10]:

Do you wake her up to write it down?

Rael [00:17:11]:

No, I wake up I’m one of those five hour a night people.

Seth [00:17:16]:

Oh, wow. I need like eight. I try and get eight, but I don’t always get eight.

Rael [00:17:23]:

No, five or six is probably my Nord.

Seth [00:17:27]:

Your sweet spot.

Rael [00:17:28]:

Yeah, and it works for me. That’s awesome.

Seth [00:17:33]:

So what is the most important thing to carry with you all the time.

Rael [00:17:38]:

That I carry with me?

Seth [00:17:40]:

Be mental. Physical.

Rael [00:17:42]:

My father says, actually, in my book, which I’m giving to all your listeners, a free download. In my book, there is a quote, and my father paraphrased that quote, my late father, so I owe a lot to him because when I was 15, he took me to Toastmasters, and at age 20, I was South African toastmasters champion.

Seth [00:18:04]:

Wow.

Rael [00:18:04]:

Got me into this area of my life, which is speaking, and I’ve loved it. I’ve sold a billion dollars of mortgages from stage, so it’s part of what I do every day. My father had a favorite quote. He said one day when he retires and unfortunately he died when he was 59 and he never got to retire. But he said, One day when I retire, I want 40 years experience, not one year, 40 times over. And that’s the entrepreneurial life. Is that it’s? Exactly. That it is. Every year is different. I was in a conversation with someone and I said, oh, yeah, in the days when I had my pilot’s license. And they said, what haven’t you done? And I went jumped out of a perfectly working plane. It’s probably the one thing I haven’t done. And they said, Why did you have a pilot’s license? I said, Just because I had the time and I had the ambition to learn how to fly a plane. I had no ambition to flying the rest of my life. I just wanted to learn how to and I’ve got 180 hours, so I’d flown a reasonable amount. But am I competent anymore at flying a plane? No. My life said I wanted to know that because it’s about these cumulation of experiences. It is.

Seth [00:19:18]:

That’s all life is, is that yeah.

Rael [00:19:22]:

That’S what life is about. And as a speaker, as a trainer, as a coach, those life experiences are what help me help other people.

Seth [00:19:31]:

I love it. And it really boils down to that, is that being an entrepreneur, you get to work 18 hours a day. You also have to choose what 18 hours a day you work and how you work those 18 hours.

Rael [00:19:43]:

Yeah, my diary now says Wednesdays are blocked out and it says Rails working at home. And then I’ll come into the office sometimes on a Wednesday and myself will say, aren’t you supposed to be working at home? Yeah, but I had things to do in the office. But it’s openly spoken about that Rail is not here on a Wednesday. Why Wednesday? Because if it’s a Monday or Friday, people think I’m just taking a long weekend. A Wednesday is like in the middle of the week. But it is the day that I do a lot of appointments. I do a lot of things out of the office. I go and see potential clients. In summer, I take my dogs for a walk down to the local park and have a coffee in the park. And while I’m there walking with the dogs, I record blogs and podcasts.

Seth [00:20:29]:

You have ideas. Sometimes walking the dog is the best time to get ideas out of your brain.

Rael [00:20:35]:

I use an app called Otter, which describes what I say, and I literally will walk in the park with headphones in. People think I’m having a conversation with someone and I’m actually just dumping my ideas out of my brain into my phone. And then it’s a Word document when I get to my desk.

Seth [00:20:52]:

Exactly. It’s called multitasking the. Right.

Rael [00:20:57]:

It’s actually there’s a guy, and I’ve completely forgotten his name. He’s Howard Berg. Actually, he goes by the moniker of the world’s fastest reader, and he reads at a ridiculous pace. But Howard taught me something interesting. He said if your brain is wired like an entrepreneur, where you’re always thinking of ideas, when you try and type those ideas out, you’ll type three sentences and you’ll go, oh, there’s a mistake there. I better go back and change that. And then you lose your creative train of thought. He said to me and then says, a long time ago, use a dictaphone. Now I use Oto, which is the same app kind of idea as addictophone, but it also transcribes it for me. Better? Yeah, absolutely. But the idea behind what he said stuck.

Seth [00:21:46]:

Yeah, just keep going. Just keep going. Fix it later.

Rael [00:21:51]:

Yeah, but that’s exactly it. It just allows you to brain dump. You brain dump all your thoughts and then you edit it out afterwards. And you’re much more creative by doing that. Love.

Seth [00:22:01]:

And on that note, where can people find you online? Where is your biggest watering hole? Where do you hang out the most?

Rael [00:22:07]:

Railbricker.com. There’s videos, there’s links to my podcast, LinkedIn. I’m very active. I love it.

Seth [00:22:17]:

So rail. Thank you so much for being on. I will now let you get the rest of your night together so you can relax, get your 5 hours of sleep in. I’m going to get my day started here and we’ll see everyone next time.

Rael [00:22:31]:

Thank you, Seth. It’s been fun.

Seth [00:22:32]:

That was a great show. If you’re enjoying entrepreneurs Enigma, please view us in the podcast directory of your choice. Every review helps other podcast listeners find our show. If you’re looking for other podcasts in the marketing space, look no further than The Marketing Podcast Network@marketingpodcasts.net. Goldsteinia hopes you have enjoyed this episode. This podcast is one of the many great shows on the MP Marketing Podcast Network.